All's Fair During a Plant War
by rumpelsnorcack
Summary: Harry and Ginny think a competition involving plants will be easy to win.


'Whose stupid idea was this?' Harry's plaintive voice reverberated in the damp shed as he frowned at the pathetic thing in front of him, the thing that was supposed to be a lustrous potted plant but looked more like ... well, like someone with a _very_ defective green thumb had tried to grow a lustrous potted plant.

Ginny laughed at his frustration. 'Not going too well for you then, Harry?' she teased.

'It's not like yours is doing all that much better,' Harry huffed at her, pointing to the limp leaves and broken pot that was Ginny's attempt.

'This was supposed to be a great gift for Mum,' Ginny sighed, wiping her hand over her brow and leaving a smudge of dirt behind. 'It was supposed to be easy.' Her voice turned accusatory; 'Neville made it look easy at school.'

In frustration she waved her wand at a nearby bucket of water and upended the lot into the pot. 'There. I'm leaving it – it can look after itself til morning.' She turned to look at Harry, who was staring at her with a mesmerised smile on his face. She squirmed a little under his gaze, still unused to being back together after the horrors they had been through at Hogwarts. Harry smiled at her a little ruefully and held out his hand.

'I'm leaving mine too. I'm pretty sure it's beyond redemption.'

'Yours is definitely not doing very well,' Ginny agreed as she took his hand.

'It's not a competition, Ginny,' Harry growled, 'but if it was I'd definitely be the winner.' He winked at her.

'Not a competition you say?' Ginny grinned at him. 'Why don't we make it one? The one who ends up with the best plant not only gets to give it to Mum for your muggle tradition day, but also ...' her eyes twinkled as she looked up at him, 'also she – or possibly he – gets waited on hand and foot for a week and gets to use all of those season tickets to the Harpies' home games.'

'Mothers' Day,' Harry interrupted. 'It's called Mother's Day.'

'Whatever.' Ginny silenced him with a look. 'The person who wins also gets bragging rights for at least a week.'

Harry pretended to consider the idea. 'You know, Ginny, there's not much incentive for me there. _You're_ the one who desperately wants those tickets.'

'I would have thought the idea of me catering to your every whim might have provided _some_ incentive,' Ginny murmured, stepping closer to Harry and placing one hand lightly on his chest. His breath caught in his throat at her proximity, and he nodded.

'You're on. I'm going to beat you, Weasley.' Ginny arched her brow, and just like that, the competition was on.

Several hours later, a determined Ginny marched into the tiny horticultural shop in Diagon Alley. As she arrived she saw the owner of a familiar black head of hair in earnest conversation with the storekeeper. She grimaced. Trust Harry to try and get an advantage by talking to an expert; she ignored the fact that she, too, was in the shop looking for some direction. Harry looked up, saw her, and grinned sheepishly. Ginny shrugged, an unrepentant smile on her face, and headed towards him. The storekeeper nodded thoughtfully and scurried away from Harry as Ginny caught up to him.

'Cheating already, Harry? That's not a good look.'

'It's not cheating – it's strategic use of the resources available.' He smiled at her. 'Besides, you're one to talk. Hoping to avoid a repetition of this morning's fiasco, are you?'

'I'm not worried,' Ginny said. 'I gave my tubular pansy plenty of water when we left this afternoon. I'm just here to get some sort of fertiliser for it.'

She frowned as a strangled squeak emanated from a nearby pile of books, but forgot it as the storekeeper shuffled back to Harry with a bottle of some sort of glowing liquid. She put in her own request, ignoring the strange look the man gave her as she requested the fertiliser for her plant.

'I'll see you back home, Potter. You're going to have to do some serious gardening today if you want to win this bet.'

Neville, who had been immersed in one of the gardening books, had heard most of the conversation. He shuddered a little at his friends' enthusiasm. Plants didn't respond well to oversaturation ... or to competition. The tubular pansy, in particular, did not like fertiliser. Still, he saw a way he could have a little fun with this bet of theirs, and goodness knows they all needed a little fun these days.

Later that evening, he made his way to the Weasleys' garden shed. Whispering a rough, 'lumos' as he entered the building, Neville shook his head in disgust at the way the poor plants looked. From the conversation he'd overheard he knew things would be bad, but nothing had prepared him for _this_.

'You poor darlings,' he said as he ran gentle, questing fingers over the limp leaves and shrunken flowers of the plants the other two had been working on. Tut-tutting over their condition, Neville expertly mixed some fertiliser for Harry's plant with one flick of his wand and then siphoned off some of the excess water Ginny had poured so unthinkingly into her plant's pot. Working swiftly, he soon had the plants looking, if not exactly healthy, then at least not on the brink of hideous plant death. Satisfied that he'd done all he could for one day, Neville sneaked back out of the shed and apparated home, whistling cheerfully.

Next morning Ginny and Harry made their own way back to the shed, ready to start their competition. When she walked in, Ginny let out a gasp of surprise.

'Hey! That water I gave it last night must have worked!' she said, delighted at her plant's apparent new lease on life. She spun around with her arms in the air. 'I'm winning!' she cheered.

'Not so fast,' Harry said, a smirk obvious in his voice. 'Mine's looking better as well. That ... whatever I did, must have done some good too.' He emulated Ginny's triumphant pose. '_I'm_ winning!'

Ginny poked her tongue out at him, and turned to her plant. Certain of her technique she poured another bucket of water into the pot, waved her wand and roughly muttered a spell under her breath. The plant withered before her eyes, sitting in a limp puddle around the base of its pot. Harry sniggered and she whirled towards him with a glare.

'You can talk, Potter – look what's happened to yours.' She waved at his plant which Harry had been pointing his wand at while distracted by her antics. It was now brushing the top of the shed's roof and putting out feelers that brushed unpleasantly against the skin. The smell it gave off was overpowering and reminded her unpleasantly of rotten vegetation. Coughing, Harry hastily put his wand away and they ducked out of the shed, gasping for fresh air.

'What in Merlin's name is going on?' Ginny gasped as they slammed the door shut behind them. 'Why did water work so well yesterday and today it's so ...' she flapped her hand around in a limp fashion. Harry grimaced and shook his head.

'I don't know. But I think we need to keep trying. You know how much your mum loves plants.' He quirked his eyebrow at her, and she laughed.

'Yeah, and it's _all_ about making Mum happy, isn't it Harry? No other motive at all ...'

Ignoring her barb, Harry ran his hand through his hair, making it stick up even more than usual. 'Perhaps we could ... ask Neville?'

'No!' Ginny was adamant. 'We have to do this by ourselves ... and besides,' she grinned at him. 'I already asked. I believe his exact words were 'I'm not getting between you and Harry in a competition, Ginny' – as if I wasn't going to get him to help you, too.' Ginny huffed in frustration.

'Cheating, Ginny? You find my gardening prowess that much of a challenge, do you? That's almost a compliment.' Harry's eyes were alight with mischief.

Blushing her best Weasley red, Ginny snorted. She pushed open the door to the shed and said, 'come on. We need to get back to this before that monster plant of yours destroys the entire shed.'

Neville sighed as he gazed around the shed. It was much worse than it had been yesterday – the plants were now in serious danger of being over-loved to death. Ginny's plant was still hanging limply over the sides of her pot even though there was clear evidence that she had attempted to remove some of the water. Furthermore, the fertiliser had, as expected, caused the leaves to turn an ugly dull orange colour. Harry's was no longer ten feet tall, but was still putting out unpleasant feelers and smelled strongly of decay and, to top it off, the roots were clearly tangled and needing breathing space. Shaking his head, Neville worked steadily into the night. It was almost dawn when he felt sufficiently happy that the plants would at least not die during his friends' next bout of loving attention. Bleary-eyed with fatigue he slipped out the door and apparated home.

'Oh wow. Harry ... look. The plants look normal again.' Ginny's eyes were wide with wonder as she surveyed the small shed's little plant kingdom. 'It's almost like someone's been helping out ...'

She spun around, realisation hitting her, and saw that Harry had come to the same conclusion.

'That sneaky so and so! He must have come down to check up on us after I asked him to help out.'

She looked up at Harry, whose grin had suddenly widened. 'What? You look like you're planning something.'

'I am' he said. 'I think we should pay a little visit to the shed tonight. You know, just to be sure our plants are all still doing fine.'

Ginny's answering smile was just as mischievous. 'You know, Harry, I think that might just be the thing our plants need. I think they also need a lot of attention over the next few hours, don't you? They're looking a bit _too_ healthy, now I come to think of it.'

Later that evening, trying to stifle their giggles, the two of them carefully made their way down to the shed. With a warning hand to his lips, Harry slid the door open and they slipped inside. Sure enough, Neville was there. His back was to them and they could hear him crooning something low to the plants. Ears straining to make out what he was saying, Ginny inched closer.

'Oh, aren't you beautiful,' Neville was exclaiming softly while staring at a corner of the bench in between the two plants. 'Your parents may be ugly. Sorry,' he added, turning apologetically towards Harry's plant,' but it's true.' He turned back to the corner he had been looking into and the soft, crooning tone started up again. 'You, however, are gorgeous. Just look at your leaves, and your flowers are going to be stunning, I can tell.'

'Neville, what are you doing here?' Harry's exasperated voice cut into the monologue and Neville gave a startled squawk and jumped back away from the bench. Behind him, Ginny could see a tiny plant, barely four inches high, illuminated by the wand Neville had dropped as he jumped. Its leaves were a vivid green colour and it had two perfectly formed red flower buds at the end of one long stem.

'I ... I was just ... um ... I forgot something here the other day ...' Neville was stammering out excuses and explanations while Harry tried to keep a straight face.

'We figured it out Neville. We know you've been helping us out; it was a bit obvious when our disasters became much less disastrous overnight.'

Ginny flapped her hand at them and said, 'shhhh Harry. Look at this plant. It's lovely; Mum's going to go crazy over it'

Harry's eyes widened as he saw the plant Neville had been hiding. 'What is it? It really is brilliant.'

'I ... uh, found it when I got here this evening,' Neville said, carefully tending to the new plant. 'It's a mixture of your two plants. Look,' he indicated the leaves. 'The leaves are like Ginny's and the flower buds are like the ones on Harry's plant.' He grinned up at his friends. 'Your plants have had a baby.'

'Oh this is perfect,' Ginny said, turning to Harry with delight. 'Neither of our plants was much good.' She laughed as he pouted. 'I know you wanted a competition, but really ... you have to admit we are the worst gardeners and this – this is beautiful, and it's from both of us.'

Ginny realised, looking from Harry to the tiny miracle their plants had created, that she didn't really care about the bet anymore. Catching Harry's eye, she saw he felt the same way and a brilliant smile lit up her face. Harry laughed at her joy, then leaned over and kissed her impulsively. 'A true joint effort for Mothers' Day. Yeah, I think I like it.' Ginny shivered as she looked into his eyes.

Neville cleared his throat and they both jumped.

'I'll just ... look after it a bit, shall I?' Neville asked. 'It's only, well.' He scrubbed his hand through his hair, took a deep breath then said, 'You guys are useless and I'm not letting you kill this gorgeous thing.'

Ginny looked at Harry who nodded. 'You're welcome to it, Neville,' she said. 'Maybe you should um, do whatever it is you gardeners do to not kill plants before we give it to Mum. She's got a bad habit of killing plants too...' She trailed off as Neville squeaked.

Looking horrified, he quickly turned to the plant and muttered a short spell. 'That should do it,' he said. Then as quickly as he could, he shuffled Harry and Ginny out of his new kingdom and returned to nurture his new baby.

'... and here's our present,' Ginny said to her mother, bouncing into her room early on the day Harry assured her was Mothers' Day.

'Whuh?' Molly moaned, cracking one eye open and staring up at her daughter.

'Mum! You need to listen more. Today is Harry's muggle tradition day and you get breakfast in bed.' She indicated the steaming tray of bacon and eggs she had pressured Arthur into conjuring up. 'Annnnnnd, you get presents from all your kids. Only, no-one but me and Harry bothered – still, here's ours.' She stepped aside so that Harry, who had been hovering in the background, could come forward with the plant, sporting a bright red ribbon around its pot. Molly gasped and sat up as a shaft of sunlight hit it and the flowers glowed a vivid red. As he stepped towards her Harry noticed that the flowers had finally opened and were a delicate, drooping heart shape.

'It's beautiful,' Molly said. 'Those flowers are amazing – the perfect way to show love.' She pulled Ginny down to give her a kiss and an affectionate pat on the cheek. Over her mother's head Ginny smiled up at Harry.

'It was made with love,' she winked at Harry. 'No ulterior motives at all.'

Molly quirked an eyebrow at her daughter, but Ginny didn't notice. She was too busy staring at Harry, ridiculous grin in place. Ginny knew she hadn't won the competition, but somehow it felt like she had.


End file.
